Plate tectonics and sea-floor spreading: A citation analysis study for identifying periodical literature

Abstract

<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";="" mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="" lang="EN-US">A paper by LePichon on sea-floor spreading published in 1968 in the Journal of Geophysical Research was cited 642 times during the years 1968 to 1979. 79 journals originating from 19 countries throughout the world cited this work. The work was not only cited by the journals of geophysics and geology but by several in general science, chemistry, physics, botany, zoology etc. Wide scattering and seepage of information was observed as the citations were made in a large number of journals of various subject areas and specialties, published from so many countries, This supports the hypothesis of epidemic nature of this work of X LePichon. A list of the citing journals is presented and a group of core journals is suggested for the documentalists that are to serve the scientists in the research areas of Earth Tectonic or Geotectonic.</span>